Another apologist for the Watchtower Society doctrinal position on blood has written on the subject. His name is Al Kidd. His written comments can be found at http://www.geocities.com/rogueactivex/blood-kidd.htm .
Al Kidd begins by writing:
“Blood's major components (red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, and plasma) taken unnaturally (i.e., taken by human intervention) from a bloodstream must not be stored for reuse in the very component form in which they were taken. If the major components are destroyed (i.e., for example, if subcomponents are extracted, by some manmade procedure, from any of the major components), then many of us Jehovah's Witnesses reason that the subcomponents may be stored for some use.”
The premise above is what Al Kidd asserts as a line of distinction between what is and is not what he later terms “bloodness.” That is, his initial paragraph ends up as a premise to distinguish between what is “blood” that must be abstained from and what is maybe not “blood” that must be abstained from.
After reading Kidd’s comment above, along with the rest of his tedious use of a great many words, one must wonder if Al Kidd knows the effect of something as simple as cooking whole blood under heat. I do. By heat conversion the components are destroyed by a manmade procedure. Therefore Al Kidd’s proposition would mean that many Jehovah’s Witnesses could store for some use blood that is first cooked under heat.
On the medical aspect of this issue Al Kidd’s premise means one thing: Jehovah’s Witnesses can use every single bit of blood so long as it is first dissected to some form other than red cells, white cells, platelets and plasma. Therefore, of a liter of donated whole blood Jehovah’s Witnesses could medically transfuse the entire amount after dissecting it.
One wonders if apologists like Al Kidd take time to review their premises for validity in the face of common sense. Or if they have simply deluded themselves with the great cloud of words they surround themselves with.
Too, in his verbose attempted apologia noticeably Al Kidd avoids mentioning the use God himself made of blood as food by providing non-Judaic descendents of Noah with unbled flesh by Israelites either giving or selling to them the unbled carcasses of animals that had died of themselves. And let’s not forget that this provision was expressly for the purpose of eating the unbled flesh! (See Deuteronomy
Perhaps one of the all time ironies regarding the WTS is that persons like Al Kidd can pride themselves on defending a position of “abstaining from blood” when in fact the WTS teaches its adherents to respect using from blood each and every day of the week. Al Kidd on one hand is forced to assert, “We abstain from blood,” yet on the other hand has to explain “Why we use from blood” -- an amazing paradox.
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Marvin Shilmer